The former commissioner has been criticized for her management style, but these friends and colleagues have shown support for Shannon O’Brien
Talking Joints Memo is publishing multiple articles about the newly public documents from legal proceedings involving former Cannabis Control Commission Chair Shannon O’Brien and Massachusetts Treasurer Deb Goldberg. Check talkingjointsmemo.com for updates and be sure to sign up for our email list for bonus news and analysis before it appears on our site.
It’s no industry secret that many Massachusetts marijuana stakeholders have picked sides in the war between state Treasurer Deb Goldberg and ousted Cannabis Control Commission Chair Shannon O’Brien. While most people just seem to want the agency to move past the ordeal and get back to solely regulating, it’s also true that lots of chatter on the topic boils down to which of the opposing parties someone loves or loathes more than the other.
Generally speaking, those who support Goldberg’s decision to suspend and then fire O’Brien allege the latter was clearly unfit to chair the commission, and point to how much more smoothly the CCC has seemingly run since her departure. The former chair’s defenders, however, claim that O’Brien never had the chance to run the agency efficiently, and suggest that the revelations in more than 3,000 pages of newly released documents prove that point.
The files in question include everything from private texts to public court documents, many of which were formerly out of public view. But in June, a Suffolk County Superior Court justice ruled in the case of O’Brien’s appeal that “the broader public in unrestricted access to the documentary evidence bearing on this government agency’s dismissal of its Chairperson overwhelmingly tip the scale, and must be respected.”
And so we have a trove of memorandums and much more which paint a picture of an agency in shambles, and that show how many people have postured around the Goldberg v. O’Brien beef. Below we highlight some of the people whose public comments or supporting statements gathered by the latter’s lawyers showed up in the volumes released last week.
Jeff Rawson of the Institute of Cannabis Science
As an outspoken industry watcher (who sometimes contributes views and analyses at Talking Joints Memo), Jeff Rawson was an early vocal critic of the move to suspend O’Brien back in September 2023. A scientist and researcher who has seen the state’s cannabis lab testing controversies unfold in real time, his position—that the former chair was bullied and then canned for asking critical questions around testing among other issues that some powerful CCC colleagues preferred not to address—is worth considering as the fallout continues.
“I’m writing to you to express my concerns regarding the suspension of Cannabis Control Commission Chair Shannon O’Brien,” Rawson wrote. “My experiences leading an organization to protect consumers of cannabis have led me to see Chair O’Brien as a needed reformer at the CCC, and I believe she is the subject of retaliation in response to performing her duty.”
He continued: “The Institute of Cannabis Science has recently discussed with Chair O’Brien problems with scientific regulation of cannabis testing in the state, including how some of the staff at CCC are compromised by conflicts of interest and how misinformation is rife in the adult-use cannabis market of MA. O’Brien expressed concern about the efficacy of testing regulations, and about building a state lab that would require years of work, the hiring of highly qualified staff, and millions of dollars to bring online.
“Chair O’Brien was one of the most receptive and understanding of the public officials we’ve encountered as we seek to reform cannabis testing, which is why her unexplained suspension concerns us.”
Barbara H. Fortier of Girl Scouts of Eastern Mass
Some of the notes and letters of support aimed to counter the characterization of O’Brien as a poor team member and ineffective leader. To that end, Barbara Fortier, the CEO of Girl Scouts of Eastern Mass, noted her “pleasure of working with Shannon O’Brien when she was the CEO of Patriots’ Trail Girl Scout Council (PTGSC) and I was the COO reporting to her.”
Fortier wrote that at the “organization with approximately 100 staff and 30,000 girl and adult members in 65 communities in and around Boston,” O’Brien was “a collaborative leader who sought to build teams [and] sought out ideas and methods to help increase efficiencies and address gaps by developing strategic imperatives that provided a roadmap for the organization.” “Of particular concern to her,” Fortier added, “was building up membership in underserved, under resourced communities in Boston to help increase opportunities for girls of color.”
Janet Wu of WCVB TV
Other letter writers also offered pictures of O’Brien that thwart Goldberg’s description of her making “racially, culturally and ethnically insensitive statements in the workplace.” The most recognizable among them coming from former WCVB reporter Janet Wu, who wrote that she has “covered Shannon O’Brien since she was first elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature in the 1980s … [and] … have never heard her lie, be deceitful or deliberately misconstrue any situation when questioning and discussing any issue through the decades of covering her.”
“Nor have I ever seen a hint of racial insensitivity,” Wu added. “This puts her in a very small percentage of politicians I’ve met and interacted with through my five decades as a journalist.”
Former colleagues
One former appointee of O’Brien’s from back when she was the commonwealth treasurer in the early 2000s wrote: “Because Shannon was the first female elected in her own right to a constitutional office, she brought with her a unique perspective on equity in the workplace. Having been the recipient of sexist bias during her career, she was committed to considering all personnel decisions without regard to race or gender.”
A particularly entertaining vignette came from an old friend whose “first job out of college was on Shannon’s staff in the Massachusetts House of Representatives moving over to the Senate after she was elected and then as her first campaign employee on her first run for State Treasurer.” The former staffer sings her praises before offering an anecdote that has O’Brien disarming an unsavory heckler like Leslie Knope channeling Crocodile Dundee.
“One of my most memorable experiences working with Shannon was from a constituent office hours when she served in the Senate,” they wrote. “We had a room full of people waiting to speak with Shannon and a troubled man was not satisfied with her recommended solution to his problem and he threatened her. After he left, I started to pack up and she explained that we had to meet with everyone that had come to see her.”
The friend continued, “After she spoke with everyone, we drove to the local police station and she reported the incident and the man’s firearm identification card was suspended. In today’s world those office hours would have likely ended immediately but this experience reminds me of Shannon’s sense of duty and conviction to serve others and solve problems regardless of personal risk.”
